Egregious student behavior from the last week of class:
1. Complaining about a B+ on a portfolio because friends, fiancee, parents, etc. had read the writing and thought it was great.
2. Asking what materials/ ideas should be included in the presentations that are just about to start.
3. Protesting an F for an assignment which included large chunks of plagiarized material and not seeming to understand that using exact wording without quotation or citation is a problem.
Just needed to vent. Thanks for listening.
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My turn:
1. Student emails me at midnight Sunday to ask the date of her presentation: "I think it was sometime at the end of the semester, but I didn't write it down. I'm going to start researching it soon." The presentation was scheduled for less than 12 hours later, 11:00 that Monday.
2. The culminating paper for second-year French is supposed to include the three verb tenses we've worked on all semester--imperfect, preterite, pluperfect. Student turns in second draft with a handwritten note on it: "What's the pluperfect tense?"
3. Departmental policy is that students are not supposed to get help on grammar when writing paper, either from native speakers or Internet translators. Student turns in rough draft that has been written all over in a French person's handwriting, correcting all her grammatical mistakes. This is despite dire warnings--in English--on the syllabus and the assignment sheet stating that this will incur a 0 on the assignment. Student protests, "But I didn't need the help! She just fixed my grammar." Sarah retorts, "Yes, she fixed your grammar. It's not your work. I can't give you credit for it." Student cries. Sarah wants to scream.
I feel your pain.
Oh, one more--indulge me.
So in their final papers, my French students are supposed to take a painting (by a French-speaking artist, natch), choose one character in it, and describe him or her. They need to use this semester's vocabulary (clothing, colors, physical appearance, facial features, personality, etc.) along with the afore-mentioned verb tenses to explain what he or she was doing in the painting and what had previously happened to lead him or her to this situation. Cool, eh? I'm pretty proud of that assignment. I even made color copies of about 50 paintings and handed them out, while reassuring the students they could pick others if they preferred.
So get this: one student did indeed choose a different painting. Van Gogh's "Starry Night."
"Starry Night" has no people in it.
I wish I taught a class where I could say, just once, "pluperfect." And make students write about paintings. Well, I do that in Creative Writing. But I like the parameters of your assignment.
And I had a student, when I asked him if he need the projector for his presentation which he was supposed to give right then he asked, "What presentation?"
Fail the student who plagiarized. Fail them.
Can I be the failure coordinator for the dept.? It's a new position I'm creating. If anybody feels squeamish about informing students that they're failing the class, they simply call me.
Dr. Write--Thanks! I'm a grammar geek, so I'm happy that I get to talk about verb tenses on a regular basis.
Middlebrow--Do you travel? Would you come to CSU and be our Failure Coordinator?
I got a great one just yesterday from a student I haven't seen in about two months via email: "When is our paper due?" To which I replied "Two weeks ago."
must take a turn:
1. Student thinks he missed his presentation because he thought it was on Tuesday even though our class has met on Wednesday all semester. I email said student on Tuesday that it's OK because he can do the presentation on Wednesday (the next day) but he declines.
2. Student's spouse attends presentation and starts interjecting contradictory comments during the presentation (comments that actually make more sense to me than the student's).
3. During the last week a student emails me her final project, then emails me that she forgot to spell check, then emails it to me again--only problem is the student and final project are from fall semester not the spring.
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